New Orleans atrocities were exaggerated

Reports are coming out now that many of the reports of atrocities in the Superdome and the Convention Center following Hurricane Katrina were bull. There's a long article here. It looks like the number of murders and rapes were greatly exaggerated, which is certainly good news. Though it makes one wonder why all this stuff was being reported so much in the media.

In another hurricane followup story, you can read about a police officer's experience who was one of the very few near the Convention Center the whole time.

On to Iraq... last week I came across a couple interesting stories trying to analyze what's gone wrong there. The Harpers story is about a year old now, but still very good. Then there's this recent story from Time magazine. After reading them, to me it looks like we've been busy repeating the mistakes of Vietnam by letting politicians make decisions that were better off left with the military.

Now a couple of fun links:
There's a site trying to tell the entire story of the Bible with Legos. Yes, these people have way too much time on their hands. The Brick Testament is definitely worth a look though.

And remember whack-a-mole? This Flash game is like whack-a-mole on steroids.